“Full-circle” doesn’t quite do justice to the neat biographical symmetry achieved this summer by Ricardo Velez, owner of the brand new Halsey Ale House, that opened August 22. A second generation Dominican (his mother arrived in the U.S. in the early ‘80s and navigated a very different Brooklyn, knitting sweaters in Williamsburg), not only has he opened the place just two blocks from his childhood home, but previously worked sweeping floors and washing windows in the space’s previous incarnation, a pawn shop.
“I saw everything,” Ricardo laughed. “There were lines of people waiting to pawn their stuff at 8 in the morning; if we got there late, they’d get very angry.”
Sitting kitty-corner from modest Irving Square Park, where Halsey and Wilson streets intersect, Velez’ new ale house sits in a largely residential area of Bushwick.
